iPhone 5 Design

Why The iPhone 5 Is Not Looking Good

More credible sources are coming out suggesting that the taller iPhone 5 display rumour is a reality — a potentially bad reality. If Apple indeed decides to make the Tall Dark and Handsome Edition, it opens up Pandora’s box for the company, which has until now made smart but conservative changes to the iPhone design when doing major upgrades. Has the competition finally got Apple off its game?

When mobile developers refer to fragmentation, they are invariably referring to Android, which has so many hardware configurations and screen resolutions that many just target the most popular Samsung device and say screw the alternatives. It’s hurting the Android ecosystem badly. If Apple suddenly changes the iPhone aspect ratio to something tall and thin, it will effectively fragment the iOS app world and force developers to make a wide/tall-screen version of their games that will probably behave very differently than a more portrait-style version. Throw in the portrait-style iPad and mix for a WTF-were-they-thinking cocktail. Existing apps will probably run letterboxed or worse: stretched to fit the new height. All screenshot mockups you see of the new design just show the launchpad and one extra row of app icons, which is about the only scenario, other than watching wide-screen movies, in which the taller phone makes sense.

I can understand Apple's desire to distance itself from other now-bigger phones, but "thinking differently" may bite them in the arse this time.